Frameworks and Parent Themes

[Graf1771]

I've been having a discussion with some other WP developers about setting up Frameworks and Parent Themes for your own websites and re-using these on multiple sites - which is the main idea behind a Framework.

I haven't got round to developing a Framework yet as I always feel my clients requirements are so different that I wouldn't be able to re-use it in the future: a film production company has a very different set of design / layout and coding specs to a public hospital or a small, local electrician...

But I think I need to update my ways of working... could I set something up that would work across all these different types of sites and is it really a lot quicker than just building a new site each time?

[nickoran]

have a look at wordpress MU or wordpress Hive, Ive thought of doing this in the past myself.

[FoundByDesign]

I am in a similar situation, where my clients vary considerably. However, I have found that a framework can really cut down dev time considerably.

I have built my own dev framework, a lot of it based off the Twenty Ten theme. However, I use that framework and make direct edits to it for each client.

In my framework, I have a lot of the custom functions that I normally offer, I have the header, body and footer pretty much mapped out. Some CSS edits and things move around quite easily. And if you use the get_template_part() function, your framework can be very modular.

Why don't I use child themes? Child themes are awesome because they allow you to edit the website and override the adult theme without changing the adult theme directly. Yeah, sounds great... if you are a framework theme developer. But since most of my themes are specifically for the client, they won't be getting any "framework" updates, so it does not matter. This is more important if you will be updating the framework to users, which I wont be at this moment.

So I do suggest you work on developing a solid framework, based on the things you do frequently and include often on your websites. If you need to add, subtract or edit things from one site to another, that is fine. It will still be much faster than starting from scratch, or even building off someone else's frame that you aren't as familiar with.

Just my thoughts...